


Vested Interests

by vodkaanddebauchery



Series: Teach Me to Sin [1]
Category: Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Genre: Deviation From Canon, Gift Fic, I should apologize to all of my literature professors for this, M/M, OTP: Those Dastardly Victorians, Pre-Slash, long-dead authors are rolling in their graves, technically AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:51:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vodkaanddebauchery/pseuds/vodkaanddebauchery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A most advantageous partnership.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vested Interests

**Author's Note:**

  * For [startwithsparks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/gifts).



> Part 1 of the Teach Me to Sin ‘verse (or simply put, the Victorian Baddies In Love ‘verse), and a gift for my darling Tumblr Husband, who is probably the only other person as excited for this stupid Victorian Lit ship as I am.  
> Christmas gifts may come and go, but Victorian villain slash is forever.

“I sin like a Gentleman, not like a Thief.”  
 _\- Jeremy Taylor_  


To say that Edward Hyde kept solitary habits would be no understatement. He was, like most men of his particular disposition, a creature wholly comfortably with keeping his own company. Often he’d heard it said that he unnerved those in his company, and when his business associates could not suppress shuddering in his presence (their tension hardly assuaged by the lugubrious slide of coin from hand to hand), it was not taken as an offense. 

This self-imposed antisocial nature suited Hyde perfectly well. He woke alone, dined alone, walked alone, conducted his business with very few, and returned home alone - except on the one very memorable occasion in which he didn’t. 

It was a tired sort of day in late December, and an indecisive rain battered the slick iron streets in fits and spurts, accompanied by gusts of wind so fierce that, quite early on in the course of running his errands, Hyde’s umbrella had been spirited away by a gale that bordered on tempestuous. The consequence of this was that, by the time he returned to his rooms, the coat collar he had turned up against the weather was soaked throughout - as was the rest of him. He dripped, shivering, on the floor of the foyer. 

Hyde wasn’t in the habit of frequently being in a bad temper - indeed, he was more disposed to a sort of simmering, universal malice; it was what he did, what he was for - but when he was in a temper, often it lasted for days, and people tended to suffer for it. 

He stalked to the parlor to hang his coat to drip onto the hearth’s flagstones, half-thinking longingly of a snifter of brandy and a change of shirts, and already feeling the simmer of malice kick up to a roil when he heard somebody in his (very private, very empty) home give a polite little cough. 

Hyde froze, then turned when he heard the cough from behind him again. 

The man sitting on his couch was young and done up like the posing dandies he’d often seen about town - all beautiful and sharply-dressed enough to draw his eye for a good moment, but affecting an air of charming and languid vapidity that soon made him pass them over. 

This one, however...he smiled at Hyde and there was something in that smile, something in the curves of those lips that lurked like a dagger beneath an all-concealing cloak. 

“How do you take your tea, Mr. Hyde?” he asked, cheeks dimpling in a most disarming manner. 

Hyde would have admitted some level of admiration for this boy - but for that he was lounging on Hyde’s sofa, one of the books from Hyde’s shelves open in his pale hand, and then Hyde noticed there was indeed a tea service set ( _Hyde’s own_ tea service, though seldom-used) on the nearby table. The youth looked for all the world like he belonged there, in Hyde’s house. 

“Not at all, if it’s served by housebreakers,” Hyde hazarded, feeling the edges of his temper lashing against his control. “What are you doing here?” 

“Perhaps that should come after a formal introduction,” the boy mused, rising to pour two cups of tea. He added sugar and delicate wedges of lemon with a casual grace, stirred, and handed a cup and saucer off to Edward - who took it, but did not drink. Nothing about the tea appeared to be amiss - it steamed, warm and inviting as anything after the chill outside - but he just glared pointedly at the youth, who gazed serenely back at him, sipping his own cup. He settled back down on the sofa and easily crossed one leg over the other. 

“I do not expect you to know me,” he began, “nor do I expect you to be disposed to fondness toward me after I’ve intruded on your privacy in such a manner.” 

“Indeed not,” Hyde grumbled. 

“However, I think it would be in your best interests to,” the youth continued. Delicately, he swirled the contents of his cup. “Believe it or not, you and I share more similarities than you may think, and it would be to both of our advantages if we were to foster a relationship, Mr. Hyde. I know your reputation well enough to say that we need not be bosom companions - for your nature would hardly allow it, I think - and I do not seek to force anything you wouldn’t want on you.” 

Hyde made a show of looking the youth from head to toe, then back again. If there were any similarities between them, they must have been well-concealed indeed. The cut of his trousers was sharp, his velvet coat was impeccably tailored; there was hardly a speck of mud on his shoes (Hyde himself had tracked puddles into the house, and he knew the cuffs of his trousers were soaked through). Everything about him suggested a fastidious attention to dress and detail and a hyper-consciousness to his looks which Hyde, though neat in appearance, did not possess. He raised his eyebrows after giving the stranger a once-over. 

“I admit I don’t see the similarities between us just yet,” he said slowly. “And if you sought to be in my good graces, you ought not to have broken into my house and posed like you were its master. And you claim to know a remarkable amount about my nature, for a stranger. What do you know of it?” 

“Only that it is similar, in a manner of speaking, to my own.” The youth stood, placing his cup and saucer on the table, and extended a hand to Hyde, who arched a brow but did not take it. “My name is Dorian Gray, and we have a mutual associate -” here he named one of Hyde’s co-conspirators in business, which did little to impress him but caused no small amount of wonder at how this dandy got into matters of danger and delicacy at such a young age, if that was the company he was keeping “ - who mentioned you in passing on more than one occasion. My curiosity was piqued by the gossip attached to your name, idle though it may have been. You’re a fascinating man, Edward Hyde. The duality -” he placed delicate stress on the word, which did not go unnoticed by Hyde “of your disposition suggested to me that I must strike up an acquaintance with you immediately.” 

“You’re too nosy by half, Dorian Gray, and not as keen as you make yourself out to be,” Hyde said flatly. Any good boy of Dorian’s age would have heard the rumors attached to Hyde - though he personally cared little of them and what they actually said - and gone straight in the other direction as fast as he possibly could. 

But then, Dorian did not seem to be a good boy. 

He wasn’t, however, familiar with the name of Gray, but took Dorian’s hand in his own cold one. “Your fascination with me. Is that professional, or personal? I’m a very busy man as I am sure you are too, if your industry with our mutual acquaintance is to be suggestive. And I know very little about you - little enough to make me question why a partnership between us would be such a striking idea to you.” 

Dorian’s dark eyes glittered. Hyde saw in the boy a strange delight with which he was not familiar, but could grow to be, if he was so inclined. His hand was soft, as soft as a woman’s - Hyde had shaken the hand of many men to watch them barely manage to repress their repulsion, but Dorian’s skin and his lips suggested that this proximity could be comfortable and right for him, if it wasn’t already. 

“It would be a most advantageous partnership,” said Dorian, smiling a hint of that dangerous smile again. “Whether personal or professional remains up to you.” He clasped Edward’s hand in a strong grip, then just as quickly dropped it. “But I believe I’ve imposed on your time and and hospitality for far too long. Do consider what I said, Mr. Hyde. It was a pleasure to meet you. And thank you for the tea.” 

He left abruptly, letting himself out with an effortless grace. The room, normally cozy and comfortable enough, seemed void of atmosphere upon his departure, and Hyde’s first thought as the door to the street slammed shut was, “Damned brat.” 

For the rest of the evening, Hyde tried to push the incident from his mind, but something in Dorian’s carriage, the knowing way he had alluded to their similarities - their dualities, to use the term that would have foolish Jekyll shaking in his boots for fear of exposure - proved irresistible to dwell on. 

And Hyde found himself taken with the audacity of the boy, and the dark mirth glittering in those clear eyes, the false-ceasefire of his dimples. 

(That he was the most astonishingly attractive young man Hyde had seen in a good long while was to Dorian’s advantage as well. Hyde was not so ascetic as to deny that, either.) 

Hyde dined alone that evening - he was, as previously noted, by and large solitary. Though when he cleared the room of the tea dishes to discover a card deftly secreted beneath the cup that Dorian had used, he was pressed to stop and evaluate whether his solitude was by choice, or for lack of suitable companions. 

The card was undoubtedly fine, crisp linen-white stock and tasteful embossing; navy ink detailed ‘D.G.’ and nothing else in an appealing, though banally avant-garde, typeface. 

On the reverse in elegant script was written, “ _Come and find me if amenable, Mr. Hyde_.” 

Edward flipped the card back and forth between his fingertips, and then into the fire. It ignited like all fancy paper did, quickly and cleanly, Dorian’s words eaten by flame like a burnt offering. 

“Interesting,” he mused, watching it crumble to ash.


End file.
